Contact of biological families with children entrusted to foster care

The objective of the presented work has been to analyse the approach of foster parents administered by the Regional Authority of the South Bohemian Region to the implementation of the contacts of the children in their foster care with their biological families and to map out the contacts of children in foster care with their biological families. The first section of the study is focussed on a theoretical analysis of alternative family care and foster care in particular. The second section deals with the processing of questionnaires filled in by foster parents operating within the South Bohemian Region in the period from December 2008 to February 2009. The analysed data were processed under the use of the questionnaire technique. The set of respondents consisted both of foster parents for whom the foster care had been mediated by the Regional Authority of the South Bohemian Region, and of foster parents whose child had been placed into their pre-foster care as well as of foster parents who had acquired the status of foster parents as a result of their application filed with a court